Metadata
- Author: Derek Sivers
Highlights
You need to know your personal philosophy of what makes you happy and what’s worth doing. — location: 63
Business is not about money. It’s about making dreams come true for others and for yourself. — location: 65
Making a company is a great way to improve the world while improving yourself. — location: 67
When you make a company, you make a utopia. It’s where you design your perfect world. — location: 68
Never do anything just for the money. — location: 69
Don’t pursue business just for your own gain. Only answer the calls for help. — location: 70
Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently promoting what’s not working. — location: 71
Your business plan is moot. You don’t know what people really want until you start doing it. — location: 72
Starting with no money is an advantage. You don’t need money to start helping people. — location: 74
You can’t please everyone, so proudly exclude people. — location: 75
Make yourself unnecessary to the running of your business. — location: 76
When you make a business, you get to make a little universe where you control all the laws. This is your utopia. — location: 115
A business plan should never take more than a few hours of work—hopefully no more than a few minutes. The best plans start simple. A quick glance and common sense should tell you if the numbers will work. The rest are details. — location: 127
Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently doing what’s not working. — location: 144
We all have lots of ideas, creations, and projects. When you present one to the world and it’s not a hit, don’t keep pushing it as is. Instead, get back to improving and inventing. Present each new idea or improvement to the world. If multiple people are saying, “Wow! Yes! I need this! I’d be happy to pay you to do this!” then you should probably do it. But if the response is anything less, don’t pursue it. — location: 145
For every event you get invited to, every request to start a new project, if you’re not saying, “Hell yeah!” about it, say no. — location: 154
And just like that, my plan completely changed again. Anytime you think you know what your new business will be doing, remember this quote from serial entrepreneur Steve Blank: “No business plan survives first contact with customers.” — location: 165
By not having any money to waste, you never waste money. — location: 177
Necessity is a great teacher. — location: 178
Never forget that absolutely everything you do is for your customers. Make every decision—even decisions about whether to expand the business, raise money, or promote someone—according to what’s best for your customers. If you’re ever unsure what to prioritize, just ask your customers the open-ended question, “How can I best help you now?” Then focus on satisfying those requests. — location: 181
the way to grow your business is to focus entirely on your existing customers. Just thrill them, and they’ll tell everyone. — location: 185
If you want to be useful, you can always start now, with only 1 percent of what you have in your grand vision. It’ll be a humble prototype version of your grand vision, but you’ll be in the game. You’ll be ahead of the rest, because you actually started, while others are waiting for the finish line to magically appear at the starting line. — location: 189
Starting small puts 100 percent of your energy into actually solving real problems for real people. It gives you a stronger foundation to grow from. It eliminates the friction of big infrastructure and gets right to the point. And it will let you change your plan in an instant, as you’re working closely with those first customers telling you what they really need. — location: 199
So no, your idea doesn’t need funding to start. (You also don’t need an MBA, a particular big client, a certain person’s endorsement, a lucky break, or any other common excuse not to start.) — location: 206
ideas are worth nothing unless they are executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions. — location: 210
When you build your business on serving thousands of customers, not dozens, you don’t have to worry about any one customer leaving or making special demands. If most of your customers love what you do, but one doesn’t, you can just say good-bye and wish him the best, with no hard feelings. — location: 253
You know you can’t please everyone, right? — location: 256
You need to confidently exclude people, and proudly say what you’re not. By doing so, you will win the hearts of the people you want. — location: 257
It’s a big world. You can loudly leave out 99 percent of it. Have the confidence to know that when your target 1 percent hears you excluding the other 99 percent, the people in that 1 percent will come to you because you’ve shown how much you value them. — location: 266
You can’t pretend there’s only one way to do it. Your first idea is just one of many options. No business goes as planned, so make ten radically different plans. — location: 293
please don’t think you need a huge vision. Just stay focused on helping people today. — location: 312